And You Fall Ever Deeper
by Faded Nights
Summary: Depression is a never ending pit that only serves to suck you ever deeper within it. Footholds are far and few, and ledges even rarer. [Raven centred oneshot]


**Disclaimer:** I do not own Teen Titans, but I'm borrowing them, Raven in particular.

**Warning:** Contains strong angst and depression.

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_And You Fall Ever Deeper_

It is hard to pull yourself out of the deep hole that is depression. You can fight against its steep, crumbling walls for months, years, or even decades, and never hope to get out. Every time you think you have reached a safe ledge, your attempt at happiness crumbles, and you fall further, deeper into the pit. You feign happiness, normality, when you are among people who don't understand. However, it is when you are alone that your true self resurfaces, and the bottom crumbles, and you sink deeper.

It was a feeling that Raven had lived with all her life, that strong feeling of depression and a strange distance from people. People didn't understand her, had never understood her, and never would understand her. Even the Teen Titans, her supposed friends. She had never had friends, and still didn't think that she had them. After all, who allows a _friend_ to sink further into the pit?

Raven stared into the large vanity mirror that rested atop her dresser and scowled into it, at her own reflection. Her amethyst eyes seemed to glow in the darkness that filled her room, and the Chakra on her forehead pulsed with black light as she hated herself further. She raised her hood to stop a further examination of her face, and found herself staring at the reflection of a creature that didn't seem to have eyes. Some sort of demon.

Yes, that was what she was, a demon. It was what she viewed herself as, and had since she was at a young age. Seclusion wasn't good for a small girl, and it had begun the crumbling of the ground beneath her feet. The slow crumbling that would continue until she came to Earth at the age of 18. But it was too late for her to change as she was already set in her ways.

Her friends had supplied foot holds at rare moments, and she had thought that maybe she would have been able to begin the long and difficult climb out, using the Titans as support, but she had been wrong. Every time Beast Boy cracked a comment at her, every time she lost control of her powers, every time she was thought of as creepy, Raven fell further. And the hole kept crumbling.

At times, she could see the delicate walls. In her dreams, she would look up and be unable to see the sky, for it was so far away. Her inability to feel, to express her emotions, had forced her ever downward. She knew that it would be impossible to escape the hole, unless someone gave her a long ladder. But no one would ever be that willing to help her.

She had often thought about getting psychiatric help, or wondered on what it would do to her. Then she decided that it would only further and perhaps quicken the process of her becoming buried by the crumbling walls. She knew that it would happen eventually, knew that eventually, it would be time to give up.

However, she wasn't quite sure when that would be. She felt that she was standing on a ledge today. Beast Boy had actually been successful in cheering her up a bit, simply by respecting her when she asked him to be quiet so that she could read. It had given her a good feeling, and she had been able to climb up a bit. There hadn't been any reason for her ledge to crumble as of yet.

Of course, there was still the Titan's meeting tonight. Robin was sure to cut her down on something. Perhaps, being hit in that last fight. For a supposed friend, he was far too serious. Though she knew that it was his duty as a leader, she also knew that leaders were supposed to know their team mates, and Robin didn't know her at all. Didn't know that she was slowly sinking. The ledge crumbled suddenly, and she felt her spirit fall flat on its back. The landing wasn't soft.

Raven sighed and looked longingly across the room at the large, double paned glass window. Images of flinging herself through it crossed her mind. The beautiful sound of tinkling glass, the sharp but strangely soothing feeling of glass shards cutting into her skin, and the sight of gorgeous, crimson blood. And the thought of no more crumbling after she landed, after all, her room was three stories up, and she would already be wounded.

A strange surge of emotion now rose in her – sadness. It wasn't an alien feeling, and had never had been. She had been lonely all her life, with only her emotions to keep her company. Even in the middle of Titan's Tower, she had only her emotions to talk to. Perhaps others would let the sadness overtake them, and would wallow in self-pity, but it wasn't something Raven was able to do. She simply took it in stride with everything else. She had always been alone, and always would be.

The pit crumbled further as Raven headed out to the living room for the weekly meeting and strategy plan. She didn't know why she bothered attending though; no one really listened to Robin. When it came to battle, they all did their own thing, and occasionally used one of the tactics that Robin had come up with, but only if they were really necessary. Still, she attended the meetings to save her private time. She didn't need Wonder Boy to come to her door and demand to know why she had skipped a tactics meeting. Besides, he'd probably try to discipline her.

And that was the simple reason why Raven attended every meeting, unless she had a legitimate reason not to. She liked her private time, she liked to be alone. She had found something good about the way she was, she didn't often find something such as that. She had found a foothold in the pit, and was pulling herself up to a ledge.

Still, strategy meetings were boring. Raven sighed and stared blandly at Robin as he spoke. She wasn't sure if the words were processing, and wasn't really in the mood to care. She had found herself dwelling on the subject of Robin's mask, wondering why he wore it. It was one thing to wear something into battle, but he wore his mask all the time, as if constantly expecting an attack. Well, they all knew that their leader was paranoid, but what if he was expecting an attack of a different kind?

Raven knew she was probably the only person who would view Robin's strange ways as something that they obviously weren't, but she was empathic, and knew that the emotions that radiated from Robin were more than simply bravery and caution. There was also wariness. Was Robin afraid of his team mates seeing something that he didn't want them to see? Was this Robin actually a façade, hiding a completely different person? Perhaps hiding Batman's true 'sidekick?'

It was something Raven knew that she would never find out for herself, not unless she went as far as sleeping with him, or some silly thing of the sort. She wasn't interested enough in Robin's past to go that far. Besides, something like that could have dangerous repercussions, and she wasn't talking about pregnancy or disease.

The meeting seemed to go on forever, and Raven began to wonder if Robin knew just how boring his constant nagging became. It was always something about Beast Boy being too impulsive, Cyborg wanting to be the centre of attention (something that Raven disagreed with entirely) and Raven trying to avoid the fighting too much – another thing that was untrue. There was never anything about Starfire, who seemed to be perfect in everyway. Raven supposed it paid to be Robin's unofficial girlfriend, but she wasn't going to dwell on that. Every time she did, she fell further into the hole.

Something Raven did feel she wished to dwell on though; was Robin's assumption that she avoided battle. It wasn't true, Raven fought as much as she could, as hard as she could. On occasion though, her grip on her emotions slipped and she found the need to slip off to the sidelines for a break, to get her control back. It was all well and fine if she crushed the villain while unleashing a power onslaught, but there was also the potential of hitting someone on her on side.

She would hate for it to happen, knew she would be blamed entirely and probably kicked off the team or at least forced to stay in the Tower for an exceptionally long time. Though it was a somewhat appealing thought, Raven didn't really wish to become known as the Titan-who-couldn't-control-herself. The thought made her slip off of her ledge, though she landed on her feet this time.

The meeting finally ended, and Raven mechanically got to her feet and began to travel back to her room, while the rest of the team remained, talking and laughing loudly. She envied them at times; they had no cares in the world, to use a cliché phrase. Raven knew that they in fact, had to feel the weight of the city on their shoulders, but she also shared that burden, and it was light compared to others that she had to contend with.

She felt a small smile escape her lips as she reached the blissful shelter of her bedroom. Nothing could bother her here; she had made sure that the team had known that from day one. No one entered her room without permission, and she hardly ever gave the sacred privilege. The team knew that there were dire consequences for anyone who trespassed, and respected her simply because they were afraid of her. Or, so she believed. She didn't like thinking that there were actually people out there who were afraid of her, but she knew that there were many who were.

People were afraid of her, and hated her, only because of what she was. She was a half-demon, and the child of Trigon the Terrible. The _only _child of Trigon the Terrible. Well, the only surviving child anyway. She knew that there had been many others before her, but she was the only one who had managed to survive. At times she wished that she could have just been killed as an infant, and not had to live this long.

However, it couldn't be so. Her mother had been weak, that was why Trigon had chosen her. He knew that Arella Roth wouldn't have been able to kill a child she had given birth to, no matter what the child was. And so Raven had been brought into the world, and protected by her mother and the ruler of Azarath, until she was old enough to protect herself from threats on her life. She was plenty able to do such a thing now, but why hadn't she ever been trained to protect herself from… Herself?

The ground in the hole gave out and Raven knew she was slowly sinking in. Before she had discovered the pit, she hadn't believed that she was depressed. She had thought that it was a normal feeling, and that it was only natural, because of her training. Of course, she had been only 11, and not yet matured enough to understand the true workings of the world. She had discovered the ever crumbling force about a year after that, and had tried to find her place in it for years. It wasn't until she had reached Earth that Raven had truly discovered how deep she had fallen during the 18 years that she had lived.

Raven knew she may have been going to far when she crossed her room and opened one of her many item chests, but she could feel herself quickly sinking, and knew that the pit had become quicksand, and it was beginning to pull her in. She wasn't going to struggle though. She would reach for the only help she had, a quick jolt back to reality. Her hand reached in the chest and searched around within it, until she found what she was looking for. Her petite hand slowly closed around the hilt of a small dagger, and she pulled the knife out and stared at its shining blade for a moment.

The rest of the team didn't know that she had it, and she had a feeling that they wouldn't like it, but Raven needed it now. She had never fallen this far into the pit, not so far that she had begun to get dragged down. Subconsciously, Raven lowered the blade to her right wrist. Looking down, she realized what she was about to do, and quickly switched the blade to the other hand. She couldn't damage her good hand, because the team was likely to discover it.

Instead, she quickly cut into the flesh of her left wrist, a quick but deep cut across the vein that ran there. She watched crimson fluid begin to bubble and flow instantly from the wound, and felt relief wash through her. The quicksand was gone, though Raven knew that she had fallen further. The ground would crumble with every slice, but Raven wouldn't stop at one, she couldn't stop at one. This was like a new way of freeing herself from emotion, and far easier than meditating.

As she made another cut, this one lighter and higher, Raven studied the hilt of the blade she held. It was carved from aged bone, and seemed to be in the form of some sort of hooded figure. The figures' eyes were finely carved and seemed as if they had been painted long ago. However, if there had been any paint on the hilt, it had long worn off. She wasn't worried about the paint though - it was a beautiful instrument of death, with or without the detailing paint had probably brought it long ago.

She was staring at the face of the figure. It seemed to be laughing at her, mocking her, telling her that she could easily be it. And that it was easier to be it, a bone, than it was to be her, a human being. Raven thought about this for a moment. She knew that it was only a matter of time before the pit crumbled all the way through, and her reserve crumbled with it. Would it be so bad to become bones and eventually dust? She would be free, free from this torture that was life, and she would no longer have burdens, nor would she have worries.

The blade was tempting her, and before she had realized it, Raven had made a multitude of cuts in her left arm. The limb was now bleeding profusely, and Raven knew by the light-headed feeling she had that it would only be a matter of time before she would faint and bleed to death. It wasn't something she wanted to happen yet, not when she had just discovered this pleasure, this escape.

She rushed to the bed and quickly pulled the dark sheets off of it, not caring if they would ever be usable again. She quickly wrapped a sheet around her arm and stared at her makeshift bandage. It was definitely something that the team would recognize, but she didn't have any real bandages in the room, and to go to the infirmary was too great of a risk.

She looked around wildly, before cleaning off the dagger and quickly placing it back into the chest it belonged in. If the others discovered her like this, she didn't need them to also find the culprit. It was bad enough that they'd probably send her to some sort of psychologist – she knew she would commit suicide first if they decided upon it – but she didn't need them taking away her precious tool for release.

She embraced pain, she always had. Even as a babe, still in her mother's womb, Raven knew that she had loved pain. It was something that she lived with everyday, and as so, she always seemed to be one of the ruthless members of the Teen Titans. Pain didn't affect her, the villain could do anything and she would keep fighting. She could probably fight until her last dying breath, though she hadn't been forced to that extreme yet.

Raven looked back at her arm, embracing pain was all well and good, but letting people see it was out of the question. The blood was beginning to seep through the sheet bandage – she hadn't cut _that_ deep, had she? – and she knew that she had to get proper bandages before the sheet was clotted onto the wounds. Taking the risk, Raven quickly headed out her bedroom door and toward the stairs that led to the infirmary.

She was actually praying that she didn't get caught, and Raven Roth hadn't prayed to _any_ god since before she left Azarath. However, if anyone caught her with these wounds when there hadn't been any crimes in the city for at least two weeks, Raven knew that she would never be let alone, ever again. Or worse, they'd think her insubordinate, and kick her out of the Teen Titans. She felt her spirit fall ever further into its home in the pit of despair.

She was thankful when she reached the infirmary without incident, and the room which smelled far too clean, especially when she had the sweet scent of blood wafting up her nose, was also deserted. Where was everyone? It didn't matter at the moment though, because she had to get proper bandages on, dispose of the sheet, and get back to her room without being seen once. She had to do the impossible.

Raven quickly searched for and found sterile pads and medical tape in enough quantity to cover the wounds. She also fetched small scissors from a cabinet, and used them to cut the sheet off – it was already blood stained anyway. When the dark cloth was removed, some of the deeper wounds started bleeding again, as they had indeed clotted to the sheet, but she got bandages over top of them quickly enough, doubling and even tripling them on the deeper cuts, and managed to get the tape on around them without too much difficulty. Of course, it didn't help that she was trying to accomplish this with one hand.

Finally finished, Raven gathered up her garbage in the soiled sheet and rolled the cloth into a small bundle, before heading out of the infirmary. Unfortunately, she was far too preoccupied with worrying about disposing the sheet, that she didn't notice she had company until she had walked directly into Cyborg. Her face, and even eyes, paled as she looked up at the half-robot.

No words needed to be said as Cyborg looked her over, clearly wondering why she had been in the infirmary when there was no reason, and when she had been fine at the meeting only an hour ago. His eyes took in her bandaged left arm and the blood covered sheet and something seemed to click in his head. His human eye widened slightly and he gave her a concerned look before turning and running down the hall, clearly headed for wherever Robin was. His room most likely.

Raven too, knew that she needed to move fast. She wasn't going to be yelled at, and was sick of being told off simply because no one could understand her. Her spirit fell deeper, and the pit began to cave in as Raven ran for her room. The door slid closed behind her as she ripped the bandages off of her arm and encouraged it to bleed by applying pressure, and she muffled a cry of pain. Her emotions were beginning to go haywire, and she heard things begin to explode around her. Shards of glass hit her face and some even embedded themselves, but Raven didn't care. She was too concentrated on getting what she needed. Her spirit was beginning to suffocate under the weight of the dirt falling in around it, and its foot had sunk and was stuck.

Raven pulled her dagger out again, and this time slashed her right wrist, not caring how deep the wound was. She couldn't stand this anymore, it was getting to be far too much for her to handle. Her powers lashed out as she lost all control and she heard the window shatter. She heard the sweet twinkling sound of glass and felt the sting as the shards of glass rained down upon her. The beautiful crimson colour of blood was running down her arms and legs, and forming a puddle beneath her.

And as the pit fell all the way through and her spirit fell into deepest oblivion, Raven found the happiest moment of her life, free of the burdens of life itself.

It was as Raven fell backwards, her brilliant red life force drained from her body, that the rest of her team rushed into her bedroom, completely ignoring the 'no entry' rule.

A cry of 'Raven!' rose from four voices; an alien's soprano, a changeling's tenor, a bird's baritone, a half-robot's bass, and the four friends found themselves wondering why there wasn't a sweet alto voice joining in with them.

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**Author's Corner**

I have _never_ made myself cry before, so I hope that this had the same effect on you as it did on me.

Yes, this was a one-shot… Please review!

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Completed 31/12/2004

Uploaded 31/12/2004


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